PRESENTATION: Maria Stamati -The Transient nature of Life        

In her work Maris Stamati focuses on the human being, where their presence is intense through absence. Stamati re-conceptualizes an expressive painting, which together with words, yarn, lace and building grid, creates artworks full of emotion and familiarity. A profound emotion that touches on human existential boundaries, which often transcends them through expression, raising questions and concerns that constitute the contemporary narrative.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Maria Stamati Archive

The flow of time, memory, and relationships take center stage in the artworks exhibited by Maria Stamati. The site-specific exhibition entitled “The Transient nature of Life” draws inspiration from the bookstore of the exhibition space and the writing. It consists of three bodies of work that function conceptually and morphologically as communicating vessels from which the thread of narration unfolds… The mesh and the threads intertwine bestowal of meanings and conceptual axes with a common point the expressionist writing. Materiality contributes to the creation of a world that projects the perpetual course of life… The fleeting imprint, the simplicity, the small and the insignificant are captured in the diptychs of the white artworks. Acrylics and inks inscribe themselves onto surfaces of paper and newspapers, unveiling the power of the ephemeral. Red and purple threads pierce the surface of the works like arteries of blood, as ephemera often seals small timelessness. The six black artworks refer to a book that unfolds in space like a story.  They constitute a visual novel, which stems from the dual nature of the artist, due to her relationship with poetry and the written word, she thus creates a “visual narrative” of collages, papers and inks with many different elements and images, referring to the cycle of life. Each artwork involves a pair of Months, the first refers to the power of the starting point, the second to the agony of identity, the third to the relationships and eroticism, the fourth to experience and interiority, the fifth to reflection on internal and external time and finally the sixth to decay …that scatters behind the “celebrations” we lived. In each artwork a black “mesh” almost transparent, holds each “chapter-work”, constituting the imprint of the effort made daily by the human being. Behind a blue sky fade in, auspicious and optimistic, while a red line runs through all the artworks, such as, perhaps, the meaning of life or the realization of the journey. The exhibition “The Transient nature of Life” is visually completed with an artwork where the structural mesh serves as the “canvas” for the inscription of a cluster of words and has direct reference to language. The written word records for Stamati, the world in our consciousness… it is the means by which we communicate and express ourselves and ultimately… “We are healed (also) through language.”

Photo: Maria Stamati, Nous guerissons par le langage, 2024, Thread and mesh, 160 X 160 cm, © & Courtesy the artist

Info: Curator: Efi Michalarou, Galerie Desmos, 14 Rue Vandamme, Paris, France, Duration: 28/5-10/6/2024, Days & Hours: Tue (28/5) 18:00-21:00, Mon-Sat 15:00-19:00, www.desmos-grece.com/galerie